The Legend of Clow Country
by Princess Vera
Summary: Syaoran Li is a military commander trying to reunite his country and fight off invaders. He rescues Sakura, a young woman who is the only survivor of a powerful noble family - but how does Sakura, who can barely use magic, figure into his plans?
1. Chapter 1

The baby was crying.

Sakura rocked the child in her arms, humming a tune under her breath. Then she wiped the sweat off her forehead. It was cool in the cellar, but trying to calm nine children, most of whom were frightened, the rest of whom were extremely frightened, had taken a toll on her.

They'd been in there for nine days.

Seven days ago, Nadeshiko, Sakura's mother, had come with servants to bring them food and blankets, telling her that they might have to spend another few days in the cellar. And Sakura was forbidden to go out, much less take the children out, unless being in the cellar somehow put their lives in danger. No one had entered the cellar since then.

Nine days ago, Fujitaka, Sakura's father, had told her to take the children and hide in the cellar. Fort Kinomoto had two cellars. One was used for storing food; the other had a hidden entrance and was used as shelter, for times of war.

Twelve days ago, the fort had been attacked. Sakura had only seen a glimpse of arrows flying over the walls before she had been hustled inside by Nadeshiko. Nadeshiko, like the previous women of the Kinomoto family, was a magic-user, able to help with the war effort. Her daughter, Sakura, had no aptitude for magic.

"It's all right," she whispered. "We'll be able to leave soon." All the children were children of the Kinomoto branch families - her cousins, or nieces and nephews. Sakura was the child of the main family, and the oldest one in the cellar - sixteen.

Nine days. They were running out of food. There were candles left, but while Sakura had been sleeping, the oldest child - only twelve - had accidentally fallen asleep as well, and so there was no flame to light the candles. And of course, Sakura had no magic to make light.

One of the children was less than six months old. There was no one to breast-feed her. As usual, the Kinomoto family never employed servants or nursemaids. So, all the women, including the mothers, had gone out to fight. All of them except for Sakura, who couldn't.

The cellar stank. There was a barrel in the corner for taking care of one's business, but there was no way to hide the smell. And no one had taken a bath in nine days. There were no spare cloths; it was difficult enough to change the undergarments of a six-month old in the dark, much less find a way to make it stop smelling.

The wailling of the baby increased in volume.

"Takashi," Sakura said, calling the oldest child to her.

"Right here," he said, nearly next to her ear. She rocked the baby in her arms for a few more moments.

"Take Chiharu. I'm going to go out and find more food and blankets."

"Don't forget some more water," he said, taking Chiharu from her. She sighed inwardly, glad to be rid of the burden. Strangely enough, Chiharu settled down in his arms, ceasing to cry. Ever since his failure to keep the fire lit, he had become much more reliable in helping her take care of the others.

"Diapers for Chiharu," piped another voice: Naoko, who was only eight, and who was annoyed that she was the only other one who had to change diapers - on virtue of being the only other one that knew how.

"Flame for the candles,"

Sakura sighed aloud. "You all are more used to being in here than I am."

"Of course," Takashi said, sounding as though he were grinning. Though he'd been as scared as anyone, his good humor had helped cheer the children up many times over the past few days. "We used to hide in the other cellar all the time when Aunt Nadeshiko would chase us around trying to get us to eat our vegetables."

"All of you, be quiet now," Sakura said, standing up. Her legs were cramped from sitting for too long, but she ignored the twinges of pain and reached above her head for the entrance. "You must be absolutely quiet until I get back."

Her hands encountered the ridged stone that was the only entrance and exit into the hidden cellar. "_Open_," she whispered.

The stone vanished. A tiny bit of light poured into the cellar; the door to the closet that she'd crawled into was closed.

She pulled herself up and out of it. The children stayed silent, no doubt persuaded by their fear. When she rolled over to the side away from the entrance, the stone reappeared, once again hiding the entrance to the cellar.

Then she heard a voice.

It came from the hallway outside. Someone was standing near the closet.

"We're almost done." That voice sound familiar. "I've checked all the bodies, and there's some missing. It's unlikely that anyone got out. Judging by the pattern of the corpses lying about, they were completely surrounded."

"The missing ones... Probably kidnapped," said an unfamiliar voice. "That may be unlucky or lucky. Kidnapping might be a worse fate than dying in this massacre."

Sakura's knees crumpled with simultaneous relief and fear. The voices were soldiers, and not the enemy, from the sounds of it. And yet... this massacre. The unfamiliar voice had said it so coldly, so detached from her own feeling of fear, that she shivered. These people must have been reinforcements...

Reinforcements that hadn't come on time. The voices seemed to fade out of her hearing.

A wave of nausea flooded over her. She gasped, falling to her knees. The stench was stronger now, worse than anything had been in the cellar.

The voices, now urgent, echoed dimly in her ears. Sakura fell to all fours and began to vomit. That smell is... No, it can't be...

Light flooded into the closet.

Then two figures pulled her upright. She swayed on her feet, though the hands gripping her arms supported her strongly. With a mighty effort, Sakura forced her heaving stomach to stop. Now the air around her smelled strongly of vomit.

"Who are you?" the unfamiliar voice asked.

She stared up at the speaker, into cool brown eyes that seemed unperturbed at her appearance, however disgusting and ragged she was.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" she said.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

"You are the first survivor we've found," he said.

"Sakura?" the other one said.

Sakura looked up. The other figure who had pulled her up was dressed in the familiar blue and gold of the extended Kinomoto family. And the face was that of one of her distant cousins, Eriol Hiiragizawa.

"Eriol!" she said. "Eriol, you escaped... then not everyone's gone..." Her voice cracked.

"You know her," said the first voice.

"Yes, milord," Eriol said. "Sakura, you're all right?"

"Where is everyone?" she asked. "We've been in the cellar for days - the children are terrified - you have no idea..."

"Dead," said the one Eriol had addressed as 'milord.'

"Don't be so blunt!" Eriol said. "Sakura, we tried to make it on time, but we didn't. This place... it was overrun more than four days ago. Maybe five. I left before the attack even started - that's why I'm here." Although his voice was gentle, and he had one hand on her shoulder to soothe her, she couldn't help but tremble. "This is Lord Li. He's our leader - we just arrived here two days ago. The rest have left already, but we're finishing up the burials -"

"No," she whispered. "You're lying.

"We," said Lord Li. "There are other survivors?"

She looked at him. "Who are you?"

"I said," Eriol began.

"As he said. I am Lord Syaoran Li."

Sakura suddenly hated that voice. That awful stench - the stench of death - still hung around them, and he could talk so coldly, as if it meant nothing to him at all. She didn't want to talk to him. She tried to shake his arm off; at that, Eriol pulled her away. She felt relieved.

"Please, milord, let me take care of her. We'll find the others and bring them out. She must be scared. Sakura - the hidden cellar?"

Sakura nodded. She'd almost forgotten - but it was the children she had climbed out for. She bent down to the floor, fighting off a new surge of dizziness, then touched the stone in the open closet and whispered, "Open."

The rock disappeared.

"Take care of them," she said, and then fainted.

--

_These are the last two, one of them said._

_The soldiers surrounded the two. They were bound tightly, hands behind their back, feet together. One of them was a beautiful woman with long dark hair, the other a tall man with vivid red hair. They were bound and on their knees, but their eyes showed their pride. They were captured, but they were not defeated._

_Around them were others, similarly bound. Others who had been killed neatly. No heads chopped off, nothing particularly bloody – an execution by magic._

_Cut off their heads, said a voice from above. The voice had no source; it floated in the air as if coming from the sky. The soldiers shivered when they heard the voice. That voice had executed the others, one by one, without its owner ever appearing._

_One of the soldiers steeled himself and stepped forward, drawing his sword. A moment later, another man stepped forward, doing the same. They raised their arms, swords held high -_

--

Sakura woke up to her own screaming.

Immediately someone appeared in the dark beside her, grabbing her arms. She fought wildly, but was quickly overpowered.

"Be silent!" hissed the now familiar voice of Lord Li. "The children are finally asleep."

She obeyed, shaking in wordless terror. What she had seen... it was impossible. The faces of the soldiers... the faces of her mother and father, about to die.

It was only when he moved did she realize that he had been standing against the window. Light from the moon flooded in from behind him, leaving his face in shadow. She tried to breathe deeply, to calm herself down. They were in a small room – she thought perhaps somewhere in the infirmary – the children were not nearby after all. And it had been a dream. It must have been a dream.

"Be calm," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She nearly drew back, but didn't, startled to hear the voice that she had thought so cold, become a little warmer. "You're safe. The children are safe."

_Don't cry,_ Sakura willed herself. _Don't cry_. Amazingly, it worked.

"Lord Kinomoto-sa was correct," Lord Li said. "You appear to be prone to nightmares."

She tried to collect her thoughts. _Talk to him normally, calmly,_ she told herself. It helped a little, more than she expected. "Kinomoto-sa," she said. "You know how the family rankings of the Kinomotos works?" _Why would Eriol tell him that I have nightmares...?_

Although she couldn't see his face, his tone of voice sounded as though he were frowning. "Lord Kinomoto-sa explained it in great detail to me. Now that the families are all but extinguished, there is no one to uphold it.."

Eriol's given name was Hiiragizawa, but his family was ranked second only to Sakura's own family, the main family. Hence, within the Kinomotos, his family would be called the Kinomoto-sa family; the third-ranked family had the suffix of "shi", the fourth "su", the fifth "se." The children were all from families ranked sixth or lower - collectively addressed as Kinomoto-so. However, outside of the Kinomotos, the families were known by their other names. Eriol should have been known to Lord Li as Lord Hiiragizawa - he shouldn't have known the ranking of each family.

"If... if my family is dead," she said, thinking to herself, _I thought he had a moment of kindness, but he talks about the death of a family as if it's nothing at all_, "then why would you need to know?"

"You must be thinking, this man is a cold and heartless person. He doesn't care that a hundred people were slaughtered, a hundred people in my family," he answered instead, as if he'd read her mind.. His face was still shadowed in the dark. "If I were to weep at every death that I came across, I would have no time for anything else. And as for the system of the Kinomoto family rankings, there may come a time when the information is useful."

_The only way that it would be useful_, Sakura thought, looking down, _is for me... Eriol... and these children. _

"You want to use us," she said.

And then she thought, _A cold and heartless person..._


End file.
